What Was It All For?
Four months after the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Israel says it is continuing to pursue the total defeat of the Islamist group, which has ruled the Gaza Strip for 17 years. At the same time, Israel is reportedly negotiating a hostage deal built around a pause in the fighting that could extend for months—long enough to make the resumption of full-scale operations unlikely, and perhaps even to arrive at a negotiated settlement. The medium-term survival of Hamas politically and administratively now appears inevitable. If so, what has been the point of the Israeli military operation in Gaza? The conflict has, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, claimed the lives of 27,365 Gazans and left an estimated 8,000 missing. (Israel counts some 10,000 Hamas militants among the dead.) It has produced unspeakable human suffering, including a fast-approaching famine, and rendered much of the coastal enclave uninhabitable, while setting the Middle East aflame. If Israel was inevitably going to negotiate with Hamas for the release of the remaining hostages and then pull out its troops, only …